Bear with me. Every once in a while I'm going to post something about my nearly neurotic quest to find a good graduate school. Here you can see where I've started the quest, and hopefully before too long you'll see me find several schools to apply to. However, this is mostly for me.

I'm trying to figure out where I want to go to graduate school. It's a hard decision because chances are that I'll get a job where ever I end up going, and that means taking up residence there. And, yes, that means a big decision. I've been looking at charts for about half a year now that sort data on various criteria, but I found one I particularly like (http://www.morganquitno.com/srml91-05.htm).

Rankings are based on the 44 factors listed here. (http://www.morganquitno.com/sr05mlfac.htm).

I went through the data taking off the states where I don't want to live which just happened to not be rated very well anyway. In the end, I came up with 19 possibilities based on state rankings for the past 10 years, which I've listed here from closest to furthest from my current location.

1) Virginia, 2) Maryland, 3) Delaware, 4) New Jersey, 5) Connecticut, 6) Massachusetts, 7) Vermont, 9) New Hampshire, 10) Maine, 11) Iowa, 12) Wisconson, 13) Kansas, 14) Nebraska, 15) South Dakota, 16) North Dakota, 17) Colorado, 18) Wyoming, 19) Utah

I ranked the above by distance from my home state because that is as important to me, but its also important that I think about specific factors, such as the percentage of the population that has a bachelors degree or better, and what the average salary is like for the school teachers in that state, because I'm planning on working in the school system as a counselor and, though I'm not sure, I assume that school counselors get comparible pay to the teachers where they work. The reason it is good to know how many people have degrees is so I can judge the competition for jobs. The less people with degrees the less competition for me in the job market. The census data found here (http://www.census.gov/statab/www/ranks.html) has this information and more.

Ok, so maybe that is just thinking too much about it. I probably don't need to worry about how many people have degrees, but I figure it pays to be cautious.

Next up: I'm attempting to piece together various online personality tests and similar things into a AskJesse profile. I have already completed several, but if you know of any that you were particularly impressed with or would like to see what I score, leave me some links!